


#0033CC International Klein Blue

by nausicaa_of_phaeacia



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Art, Coulson and his Huge Crush on Daisy, F/M, Gen, Paris (City), Yves Klein, unapologetically cheesy because I'm scared of what the finale is going to do to me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 16:56:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6864775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nausicaa_of_phaeacia/pseuds/nausicaa_of_phaeacia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daisy is frantically doing some research in the middle of the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	#0033CC International Klein Blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Skyepilot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Fugue in Blue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6433144) by [Skyepilot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot). 



> This sort of didn't end up where I'd initially planned it to end up. It's for Skyepilot because we had this conversation on tumblr about Daisy researching historic figures (and Skyepilot already wrote a brilliant fic about it). I had originally planned to write a long, chaptered fic about this idea, talking about different artists, writers etc. I'm probably still going to do that (I really want to), but in the meantime, have this. :)
> 
> (Also, I didn't want to deal with the current happenings of Season 03, so this is some sort of vaguely S3 fic.)

He keeps finding her in the living room in the middle of the night, always watches her for one or two minutes until he decides, again, that he shouldn’t be disturbing her. She usually sits on the floor, different books piling up around her, opened, making it hard for him to make out her laptop between all the pages. She’s obviously researching something, and he wishes he knew what it is, even if only to help her, to do something to make her work easier, because it’s usually her deep frown that makes him turn around noiselessly, tiptoe back to his bunk. 

From where he’s standing, she’s apparently looking at different art catalogues, but that’s all he can tell from peaking in through the almost-closed door. And he never dares to linger for more than a few short minutes, it feels wrong, watching Daisy when she doesn’t know, even though there’s nothing actually inappropriate to his checking up on her whenever he realizes that the lights are still on in the living room. Still – Coulson feels guilty for knowing something about her that she hasn’t chosen to tell him. 

One night, though, she seems to be onto something, and he can’t resist knocking on the slightly open door. Daisy is murmuring something, bending from one open book to the other, scribbling notes, typing something into her browser’s search bar.

She quickly says “come in”, without even acknowledging it’s him, then still checks who it is when he steps closer, obviously a little worried who she’s about to share her findings with. It makes him smile, because Daisy crouching on the floor, her hair tousled, several empty mugs behind her, all these books and papers scattered around her in a large messy circle, this is just very endearing. She looks exhausted but also kind of wired and enthusiastic, worried she might be making a mistake and celebrating too early. 

He looks around for a moment.  
“Yves Klein?”  
The smile she casts at him is invaluable, it goes straight to his chest and he’s not sure what to do with it. Obviously, his presence is sort of pulling her out of this buzz that hour-long research and a probable discovery have kept her in, and her smile seems like a weird interruption of her diligent, almost manically efficient research work, but she seems grateful that he came in just now, so he just smiles back, waits.

After a moment, she closes the book closest to her, says,  
“You know he patented a colour. Well, no. Registered a colour.”  
He nods, and she seems extraordinarily pleased with his amateur knowledge of twentieth-century art.  
“Why are you researching him?”  
She opens another book, sort of gestures for him to come closer, and he decides on a whim that he’s just going to kneel down next to her, in his pajamas, barefoot, kind of exposed but he guesses that’s all spontaneous companionship is about.  
She leans over, puts the book in front of him, her index finger pointing at one of those incredible blue paintings he’s never known how to describe (he just remembers staring at them, unable to really breathe or think). This colour, it’s something else, it’s pulling at something inside of him in a way he can’t put into words.

He touches the page.  
“What does it remind you of?” Daisy is audibly excited, scoots a little closer, eager to hear what he thinks.  
He sort of feels the pressure to come up with an idea, makes an effort to find an answer, but comes up empty-handed because all he can think of is -  
But that can’t be.  
The shock in his eyes as he abruptly turns to look at her makes her smile.  
Of course.  
“You think he might have been –“  
She nods, pleased with herself. “I don’t have any proof. But after a week’s worth of reading, I think there are a few indications that he might have been, yeah.”  
He looks really happy about that, and she knows it’s just the exhaustion and the weird circumstances (Coulson looking everything but official, crouching next to her on the living room floor, capable of being enthusiastic about something she might have found out about a French artist obsessed with the colour blue), but she might or might not feel tempted to hug Coulson right now. She doesn’t, because, well, she doesn’t want to embarrass herself. Or him.

There are a few things she might have expected him to say, but what follows definitely isn’t one of them. After skimming through the text next to the picture, he looks up at her, his eyes shining, and says,  
“We should go to Paris. Just to check.”  
She has to catch her breath there.  
“What are you – Are you serious? I mean – what to do you suggest we do?”  
“He had help from this art supplier, right? Édouard Adam? To maintain the colour’s radiance even after mixing it with a binder?”  
She nods far too quickly, like a little child.  
“I recently read an article about him in the _Independent_. He’s still alive.”  
That does make her hug him.

It’s quite impossible to really explain _this_ to anyone, even May, so Coulson makes up some flimsy story about an urgent undercover mission in Paris. May raises her eyebrows (or rather, one eyebrow, which usually means she’s onto you), but doesn’t say anything. She does hand Daisy a pocket map of the city, though, and Daisy doesn’t dare ask questions, but there’s the hint of a smile on May’s lips.

The flight didn’t take as long as she’d anticipated, but that’s probably just due to Coulson’s connections to people with means of private transportation. Before they go to Adam’s art supply shop, Coulson makes Daisy try a _crêpe_ , makes her climb the Eiffel tower’s stairs, and she hasn’t been his pleased with the world in a few months. There’s just nothing bad to be found about this day, and Coulson seems to understand, it’s there somewhere in his smirk.

When they finally arrive at the Boulevard Edgar-Quinet in Montparnasse, Daisy is so excited she can barely contain herself, sort of clings onto Coulson’s arm as he opens the door for her. The chiming of a few small, old-fashioned shop bells mark their entry, and an elegant old man in a black turtleneck walks up to the counter, smiles at them. 

Coulson seems to be trying to come up with an adequate introduction, but he seems to be a little insecure, so Daisy manages a small _Bonjour_ before he can say anything. The shop owner seems to understand immediately that they’re tourists, so he takes to a fluent, round English that has a lovely shade of French, something you wouldn’t instantly read as an accent, but rather as a very warm, very dignified manner of speaking. 

“How can I help you?”  
Coulson looks much more confident now, but Daisy sort of takes over, obviously glad to be given the opportunity to speak to the man, and Coulson is more than happy to let her do the talking. She just looks so excited.  
“Monsieur Adam, I wanted – we wanted to ask you about International Klein Blue.”  
The old man smiles kindly. “It is fascinating, no? I have always tourists asking me about that. Such a colour.”  
“I read that you came up with a special binder for the pigment, is that true?”  
Daisy watches him open a small drawer, reach deep into it and put a little flask on the counter. “I call it Médium Adam 25.”  
Coulson steps closer. “What is it made of?”  
“It is mostly a polyvinyl acetate. We bought it always from a pharmaceutical company, called Rhône-Poulenc. They called it Rhodopas.”  
Coulson notices Daisy silently echo the name. There is a strangely familiar expression on her face, she reminds him of when she was sitting on the living room floor amidst all her research.  
“That’s a kind of resin, right?,” she asks.  
“Yes, but it is artificial. A synthetic resin.”

She carefully picks up the little flask, examines it, the concentration showing on her forehead. Adam briefly exchanges a knowing smile with Coulson.  
“Anything else I can do for you, Mademoiselle? Monsieur?,” the gentleman asks after a moment of silence.  
Daisy suddenly seems a little shy, so Coulson takes up the conversation.  
“Yes, Sir, actually, there is. We’ve come here to ask you about the pigment Monsieur Klein used for his blue. It was – it was not ultramarine, was it?”  
“No, the ultramarine powder they made from lapis lazuli, that’s not so bright. That’s why it didn’t work. That’s why he wasn’t satisfied with the colour he received.”  
Daisy takes a quick look at Coulson, then leans just a little bit closer to Monsieur Adam, obviously shy, but there’s something in her eyes that makes Coulson admire her for some reason.  
“I think he used some sort of crystal – didn’t he?”  
It takes the old man a moment to respond.  
“Come.”

He waves them around the counter, gestures for them to follow him into a small back room, its wooden furniture decorated with beautifully ornamented inlays. Coulson seems to be slightly nervous, because he removes his jacket even though it’s not overwhelmingly warm inside the shop.  
“It is a crystal, yes,” Adam begins as he opens a drawer, produces a relatively small wooden box, “but it is a poison. One mustn’t touch it.”  
Daisy seems to be almost trembling, and Coulson carefully puts a hand on her shoulder. She still sounds a little breathless.  
“But some people can touch it, is that true, Monsieur Adam?”  
The old man looks at her with something that looks very much like pride, like he’s really pleased to meet her.  
“Yes,” he answers simply, “I can,” puts the box on the table. He reaches into it, takes a fragile and geometrically perfect blue crystal into his hands, offers it to her, his eyes telling her he understands.  
“Is that why you mixed it with the resin?,” she asks quietly.  
“That too, yes. It helps with binding, but it reduces the danger also.”  
Very carefully, very respectfully, as if she were touching a priceless artefact, Daisy extends her arm, slowly moves closer to touch her fingers against the Terrigen crystal. Her eyes are a little too shiny, and Coulson’s not sure what to do, but in the next moment, there’s a smile so bright that he forgets about everything else.

They end up getting coffee with Édouard Adam, in small brass cups, and he tells them small stories about Klein, about the _enveloppe Soleau_ that registered the pigment under Klein’s name, and about the supplies shop Adam took over from his father, about how Klein once bought sponges here from a Greek supplier, measuring them not by the piece, but by the square metre. Daisy’s laughter is so clear, so free that Coulson wonders if this is something she really needed, if the job is too suffocating, if she needs more days like this where she gets to do something far away from S.H.I.E.L.D., something that tells her more about the miracle that is being Inhuman, something that helps her understand little bits and pieces about herself and find value in what she does.

When they finally leave and it’s gotten quite dark outside, and Daisy is just about to hail a cab, Coulson tells her he’s forgotten his jacket in the back room, runs back inside the shop. Daisy hails a cab anyway, holds the door open for him when he returns. They share the back seat, and at one point (the ride to Orly takes quite a while), Daisy rests her head on Coulson’s shoulder.

They are quite exhausted when they arrive at the base, and Coulson is about to tiptoe to his bunk after sort of shyly wishing Daisy good-night, obviously trying to avoid awkwardness, but she quickly hugs him, whispers a small _Thank you_ , then turns and walks down the hallway. She can hear him stand there for a moment, looking after her, before he turns, too.

When she opens her bunk door the next morning, there is a tiny flask of pigment on the floor, bright blue. There’s already a new kind of warmth filling her chest before she smiles, before she picks it up. The small handwritten label on it reads, _#0033CC International Klein Blue_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Tell me what you think :)
> 
> I read about Yves Klein and IKB and Rhodopas and Édouard Adam on Wikipedia, and the Independent article about Klein and Adam that I had Coulson mention is over here:  
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/edouard-adam-the-search-for-the-perfect-blue-225537.html


End file.
